Path to nowhere

Updated 12:51 pm, Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Photo: Karen Warren, Staff

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If you've been waiting for the city to show up and fix the sidewalk, don't hold your breath. Like most Texas cities, Houston sidewalks are still largely the responsibility of landowners. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) less

If you've been waiting for the city to show up and fix the sidewalk, don't hold your breath. Like most Texas cities, Houston sidewalks are still largely the responsibility of landowners. ( Karen Warren / ... more

Photo: Karen Warren, Staff

Path to nowhere

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Houston's new sidewalk ordinances are a step in the right direction, even if those steps will still have to avoid cracked and crumbling concrete.

Last week, City Council unanimously passed two ordinances that will help streamline the sidewalk construction process ("Council eases path to sidewalk repairs," Page B2, Thursday). Specifically, the ordinances set fixed prices with select contractors and waive permit fees and mandatory plan submissions. All you have to do is fill out a request form on the Department of Public Works and Engineering website and a city worker will check out the sidewalk and estimate the cost of repair. So if you've been waiting for the right opportunity to fix the root-riddled sidewalk in front of your home, now is the time.

But if you've been waiting for the city to show up and fix the sidewalk, don't hold your breath. Like most Texas cities, Houston sidewalks are still largely the responsibility of landowners. It is an arrangement that essentially leaves a public easement in the hands of private citizens, allowing the city to eschew its duty to people who aren't in a car. To put it simply: Taxpayers foot the bill for freeways to suburban business campuses, but neighborhoods have to pay out of pocket for their sidewalks. This arrangement has left more than 3,100 miles of Houston streets without a sidewalk, according to a 2013 report.

Meanwhile, the parts of Houston that need walkable infrastructure the most will remain the least able to pay for it. A Governing Magazine study found that high poverty areas in Harris County had pedestrian death rates more than double that of low poverty areas in 2008-2012. So while $1,000 to replace a few panels of sidewalk may seem like "another tool in the toolkit for neighborhoods," as Councilman Larry Green said, it feels like poor folks are being offered a deal they can't afford.

However, City Hall is making progress to provide sidewalks for those who can't pay. Mayor Annise Parker's October 2013 executive order on Complete Streets means that the city will consider sidewalks whenever it rebuilds streets.

"We will eventually have sidewalks, but it will take a very long time," Parker said earlier this month on the KUHF-FM show "Houston Matters." "The challenge is that large swaths of Houston were fully developed without sidewalks."

The other challenge comes in November, when Houstonians elect a new mayor who may not continue Parker's Complete Streets plan, especially given recent construction bids for Complete Streets projects that exceeded the city's budgets. New sidewalks look like a poor investment when construction follows Rebuild Houston's "worst-first" model, rather than targeting the weak links where Houstonians need sidewalks the most. This patchwork system only creates a failed network where a perfectly paved sidewalk can be interrupted by a block or two of overgrown lots.

Like the Parks By You initiative, sidewalk construction works best when it "strings the beads" of Houston's already-existing infrastructure, ensuring that the city's limited sidewalk construction actually connects with a greater network. Right now it is hard to argue that homeowners should cover the costs of their own sidewalks if they're essentially paying for a path to nowhere.